Helluva week, huh?
These are extraordinary times. Frightening times.
After Charlie Kirk’s murder last week, Donald Trump and the far right “declared war on the left,” writes Dan Froomkin. The mainstream press ignored it. Mother Jones and Wired did not.
Russian drones encroached on NATO airspace last week in Poland, then again in Romania. “Together with our NATO allies, we remain vigilant and ready to defend every inch of allied airspace,” Romanian Defense Minister Ionut Mosteanu said in a post to X. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is “probing with bayonets,” looking for weakness.
Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures. Take some. It will help.
I’m an introvert by nature, a campaign adviser, a numbers cruncher, a behind-the-scenes activist. But not today. I now hit the streets during rush hour 4-5 times a week in different locations. A Resistance no one sees is not a Resistance. Nor is it the reassurance your neighbors need.
Friends believe I have a talent for creating clever, pithy messages. I go kinetic, spinning a 3’x1’ corrugated plastic sign overhead to maximize attention (and text size, roughly 400 pt) by spreading out a four-to-seven word message on two sides. The week’s two-sider reads: DICTATORS | TREAD ON YOU.
At one major intersection on Wednesday (solo), a woman waiting for the light stuck her head out the window of her car to thank me multiple times. A woman jogger thanked me. A cyclist waiting for the WALK signal thanked me too.
“I guess somebody’s got to do it, right?’ he said.
I told him I hate that feeling because it means that somebody is probably me. There was only one middle finger on Wednesday, the night of Kirk’s murder.
At a different location on Thursday with the same sign and about 30 friends (I play dance music on an Bluetooh speaker), a cop shot me a thumbs-up from his patrol car. A woman waiting for the light gave me two thumbs-up, then started blowing kisses.
Your neighbors want to see you out there. They need to see you.
In the wake of the Charlie Kirk shooting and taut tensions, your neighbors need to know that they are not alone. And not just by your re-posting internet memes. Neighbors appreciate you (at least where I live). You’re helping them cope and tamp down their fears. Maybe they’ll even get off their couches for the first time in their lives. Our groups are growing.
Friday nights (again solo), I spend an hour-plus on an overpass with a larger, one-sided sign (3’x2’). The messages are deliberately less edgy and more empathetic (know your audience). This week’s message read: YOUR LIFE SHOULDN’T BE THIS HARD. (The side facing the bridge reads: ARE YOUR GROCERIES CHEAPER?) To confound preconceptions of political protesters when solo, I wear crisp, button-down Oxford shirts and a Nike golf hat.
The overpass effort is a longer-term strategy to become a trusted messenger before getting more political. The responses from the highway on Friday were enthusiastic and uniformly positive: thumbs-up, fist pumps, peace signs, waves, honks. Judging by the vehicles, many from blue-collar tradesmen.
But there are also pedestrians crossing the bridge going to and from work at that hour.
A woman maybe 35-40 walked up Friday night and told me she works downtown. It lifts her spirits, she said, to see me there every Friday. She admires the commitment. When I told her I’m doing this 4-5 nights a week in different locations, she was even more impressed. I guess the trusted-messenger strategy is working.
Harrah’s runs the civic center on the downtown side of the overpass. A slim, tattooed young woman about 30 on her way there Friday in a dark Harrah’s shirt read YOUR LIFE SHOULDN’T BE THIS HARD.
“Oh, hell yeah,” she said, shooting me a pinky-and-thumb, shaka salute. She asked if she could take a picture.
An older man headed in the same direction in a Harrah’s shirt asked what the sign said. I pivoted to show him.
“You got that right, brother,” he said and slapped me on the shoulder as he passed.
Not one middle finger on Friday.
Not today
Some readers may find actions like these too small-ball. You may fancy yourself the region’s foremost expert on [your pet issue here], an issue you believe will rewrite politics as we know it if only people would listen. But get real. Grassroots often starts small. Rosa Parks just sat down on a bus.
There comes that pivotal moment in films where heroes make a choice: to run or to set their jaws and stand and fight. I think of the late Bruno Kirby who played Ed in City Slickers. In a violent lightning storm, stuck tending someone else’s cattle, the vacationing wannabe cowboys from New York City face that choice. Phil (Daniel Stern) wants to run:
Phil: Let’s just leave the herd and get the hell out of here, huh?
Ed: No. A cowboy doesn’t leave his herd.
Phil: You are a sporting goods salesman!
Ed (digging deep): Not today.
Whoever you are, whatever you do or once did? Not today.
Dig deep. Get offline some, willya? Be seen. Bring friends. In redder areas, definitely. Your neighbors (some, anyway) will love you for it.
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Have you fought dicktatorship today?
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